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Manuscript Format


Steve

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I've recently received a couple of emails asking about formatting, so I thought I'd briefly discuss the (more or less) standard manuscript format. (Note: the styles provided by the Novel template and the Blank template are set up to make it easy for you to follow these guidelines.)

 

In the standard format, section text is double-spaced, left aligned, and set in a 12 point Courier font. Paragraphs begin one half inch (5 characters) from the margin. The margins are set so that there are 25 lines per page, with each line having a maximum of 60 characters.

 

Why is that? So that your editor can estimate the word count and accurately determine the final page count of your book. The math works like this: Sixty characters per line at an average of six characters per word (a publishing industry rule of thumb) works out to an average of ten words per line. A 25 line page, then, will have an average of 250 words--a nice big round number. Four pages is about a thousand words. Four hundred pages is about a hundred thousand words. By the way, partial pages other than the first page of a chapter are estimated as 125 words.

 

Section breaks (the visual breaks between the scenes in your story) are indicated as above using a centered number sign ("#"). Don't use a blank line to separate your sections since they are easily missed by the typesetter, especially if they happen to fall at the bottom of a page.

 

Page headers typically include your last name, followed by your novel title (which you can shorten if you have a long title), and end with the page number.

 

Chapters begin on a new page about a third of the way down and start with a centered chapter title in all caps (i.e. all of the letters are capitalized).

 

When you finish your manuscript and start sending it to agents and editors, you'll want to include a title page to let people know how to contact you and where to send the check.

 

Type your name, address, phone number, and email address in the upper left corner in single-spaced 12 point Courier. In the upper right, type the word count. You should calculate the word count using the estimating method outlined above (and round up to the nearest thousand) rather than use the actual word count calculated by the program.

 

Center your novel's title about halfway down the page, add two single-spaced returns and then your name (or pseudonym) as you want it to appear when your book is published.

 

That's about it.

 

-Steve

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This was really helpful. Thanks! :(

 

I've recently received a couple of emails asking about formatting, so I thought I'd briefly discuss the (more or less) standard manuscript format. (Note: the styles provided by the Novel template and the Blank template are set up to make it easy for you to follow these guidelines.)

 

In the standard format, section text is double-spaced, left aligned, and set in a 12 point Courier font. Paragraphs begin one half inch (5 characters) from the margin. The margins are set so that there are 25 lines per page, with each line having a maximum of 60 characters.

 

Why is that? So that your editor can estimate the word count and accurately determine the final page count of your book. The math works like this: Sixty characters per line at an average of six characters per word (a publishing industry rule of thumb) works out to an average of ten words per line. A 25 line page, then, will have an average of 250 words--a nice big round number. Four pages is about a thousand words. Four hundred pages is about a hundred thousand words. By the way, partial pages other than the first page of a chapter are estimated as 125 words.

 

Section breaks (the visual breaks between the scenes in your story) are indicated as above using a centered number sign ("#"). Don't use a blank line to separate your sections since they are easily missed by the typesetter, especially if they happen to fall at the bottom of a page.

 

Page headers typically include your last name, followed by your novel title (which you can shorten if you have a long title), and end with the page number.

 

Chapters begin on a new page about a third of the way down and start with a centered chapter title in all caps (i.e. all of the letters are capitalized).

 

When you finish your manuscript and start sending it to agents and editors, you'll want to include a title page to let people know how to contact you and where to send the check.

 

Type your name, address, phone number, and email address in the upper left corner in single-spaced 12 point Courier. In the upper right, type the word count. You should calculate the word count using the estimating method outlined above (and round up to the nearest thousand) rather than use the actual word count calculated by the program.

 

Center your novel's title about halfway down the page, add two single-spaced returns and then your name (or pseudonym) as you want it to appear when your book is published.

 

That's about it.

 

-Steve

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  • 3 weeks later...

I pass this along for the benefit of my fellow Storyists. My novel is approximately 100,000 words--almost 500 pages in Courier 12. The editor I work with told me to put it into Times New Roman 12 before sending it to an agent. Why? Because to mail 500 pages, the agent would have to use two manuscript boxes, and publishers won't read anything that comes in two boxes!

 

I know, this is totally absurd. The manuscript still has 100,000 words even if it's formatted in Times New Roman and only occupies 360 pages (although it costs me much less to print and to duplicate). So the publisher will spend just as long reading it in the smaller font and may develop eye strain as well! But so, apparently, it is.

 

Far as I can tell, the rest of Steve's helpful suggestions still apply.

 

Fortunately, Storyist allows modification of its styles, so anyone who finds his/her novel exceeding about 80,000 words can make the appropriate changes. :(

Cheers,

Marguerite

 

I've recently received a couple of emails asking about formatting, so I thought I'd briefly discuss the (more or less) standard manuscript format. (Note: the styles provided by the Novel template and the Blank template are set up to make it easy for you to follow these guidelines.)

 

In the standard format, section text is double-spaced, left aligned, and set in a 12 point Courier font. Paragraphs begin one half inch (5 characters) from the margin. The margins are set so that there are 25 lines per page, with each line having a maximum of 60 characters.

 

Why is that? So that your editor can estimate the word count and accurately determine the final page count of your book. The math works like this: Sixty characters per line at an average of six characters per word (a publishing industry rule of thumb) works out to an average of ten words per line. A 25 line page, then, will have an average of 250 words--a nice big round number. Four pages is about a thousand words. Four hundred pages is about a hundred thousand words. By the way, partial pages other than the first page of a chapter are estimated as 125 words.

 

Section breaks (the visual breaks between the scenes in your story) are indicated as above using a centered number sign ("#"). Don't use a blank line to separate your sections since they are easily missed by the typesetter, especially if they happen to fall at the bottom of a page.

 

Page headers typically include your last name, followed by your novel title (which you can shorten if you have a long title), and end with the page number.

 

Chapters begin on a new page about a third of the way down and start with a centered chapter title in all caps (i.e. all of the letters are capitalized).

 

When you finish your manuscript and start sending it to agents and editors, you'll want to include a title page to let people know how to contact you and where to send the check.

 

Type your name, address, phone number, and email address in the upper left corner in single-spaced 12 point Courier. In the upper right, type the word count. You should calculate the word count using the estimating method outlined above (and round up to the nearest thousand) rather than use the actual word count calculated by the program.

 

Center your novel's title about halfway down the page, add two single-spaced returns and then your name (or pseudonym) as you want it to appear when your book is published.

 

That's about it.

 

-Steve

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I pass this along for the benefit of my fellow Storyists. My novel is approximately 100,000 words--almost 500 pages in Courier 12. The editor I work with told me to put it into Times New Roman 12 before sending it to an agent. Why? Because to mail 500 pages, the agent would have to use two manuscript boxes, and publishers won't read anything that comes in two boxes!

 

I know, this is totally absurd. The manuscript still has 100,000 words even if it's formatted in Times New Roman and only occupies 360 pages (although it costs me much less to print and to duplicate). So the publisher will spend just as long reading it in the smaller font and may develop eye strain as well! But so, apparently, it is.

 

Far as I can tell, the rest of Steve's helpful suggestions still apply.

 

Fortunately, Storyist allows modification of its styles, so anyone who finds his/her novel exceeding about 80,000 words can make the appropriate changes. :(

Cheers,

Marguerite

 

Interesting. I hadn't heard the "one box" rule before, but I can easily imagine an agent wanting to cut down on the size of the "slush" in their slush pile.

 

BTW, though the guidelines I outlined above are fairly well established, manuscript formatting requirements can actually vary a little bit from publisher to publisher. Times New Roman, as Marguerite mentions, is an acceptable alternative to Courier in some places (it is considered much prettier and easier to read). I've also heard from a couple of authors that their publisher requests a slightly different header format or placement. My opinion is this: If someone wants to read your manuscript and specifies a specific format, the correct answer is "Yes Ma-am. Right away!"

 

Note: If you develop a template you'd like to share, you can post in in the "Sharing" forum on this site.

 

Thoth: I haven't forgotten your request for screenplay info. I'll have something for the board in a little while. In the meantime, there is a good overview at the Oscar's site.

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Interesting. I hadn't heard the "one box" rule before, but I can easily imagine an agent wanting to cut down on the size of the "slush" in their slush pile.

 

BTW, though the guidelines I outlined above are fairly well established, manuscript formatting requirements can actually vary a little bit from publisher to publisher. Times New Roman, as Marguerite mentions, is an acceptable alternative to Courier in some places (it is considered much prettier and easier to read). I've also heard from a couple of authors that their publisher requests a slightly different header format or placement. My opinion is this: If someone wants to read your manuscript and specifies a specific format, the correct answer is "Yes Ma-am. Right away!"

 

Note: If you develop a template you'd like to share, you can post in in the "Sharing" forum on this site.

 

Thoth: I haven't forgotten your request for screenplay info. I'll have something for the board in a little while. In the meantime, there is a good overview at the Oscar's site.

 

Yes, I've seen publishers specify Times New Roman, too. Personally I much prefer Times to Courier: the em-dashes in Courier drive me nuts (I know, I seriously need a life). :(

 

And yes, if a publisher wants to read my manuscript, they can request I print it in red ink if they want!

 

I'm wildly under the gun at the moment because I have to get revisions done by the end of July, but when I have time to breathe I'll create a Times New Roman template and upload it.

Marguerite

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  • 2 weeks later...
Yes, I've seen publishers specify Times New Roman, too. Personally I much prefer Times to Courier: the em-dashes in Courier drive me nuts (I know, I seriously need a life). B)

 

And yes, if a publisher wants to read my manuscript, they can request I print it in red ink if they want!

 

I'm wildly under the gun at the moment because I have to get revisions done by the end of July, but when I have time to breathe I'll create a Times New Roman template and upload it.

Marguerite

 

Marguerite put together the Time New Roman template. You'll find it in a topic under "Sharing". (I had to post it for her since I forgot to add story files to the list of files you can upload. :( That is now fixed. If you have a template to share, you should be able to upload it now.)

 

So how did the revising go, Marguerite?

 

-Steve

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Marguerite put together the Time New Roman template. You'll find it in a topic under "Sharing". (I had to post it for her since I forgot to add story files to the list of files you can upload. :( That is now fixed. If you have a template to share, you should be able to upload it now.)

 

So how did the revising go, Marguerite?

 

-Steve

 

Thanks to Thoth, who picked up some amusing glitches in my original template—remember our discussion of what editors do for novels? well, we need editors for posts, too! I've corrected the two points he raised and uploaded a new template (same title, so if you downloaded it already, just download the new one over it, and if not, please use the second version, not the first). So now you know for sure that we can upload .story files.

 

The revisions went great. I got them off for final read-through a day ahead of schedule. If this version passes muster, this freelance editor will recommend the book to an agent, so keep your fingers crossed for me!

 

Now I'm back in Storyist every minute I get, setting up the characters, dramatic arc, and synopsis for vol. 2. If only I didn't have to earn a living... B)

Cheers,

Marguerite

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